Elephants
We were lucky to see elephants in all the National Parks we visited. We often saw lone bulls eating, or in one case having a mud bath.
The most exciting part of the holiday was when we were mock-charged in Moremi. Of course we didn’t know it was a “mock-charge” while it was happening. Our guide explained it all afterwards.
Botswana 2018 Photos:
Mud Bath time!
The Elephant Mock-Charge
In Moremi National Park we got in the way of this herd of elephants. I like the calf trumpeting in the centre.
The elephants were unsure what to do when our jeep did not move, blocking their path.
When elephants rock their heads & trunks like a pendulum and keep their ears spread out, that shows that they are angry & threatening.
After we drove off the guide explained that the elephants’ behaviour was such as to try to scare us off. If one of them really was going to charge us it would have prepared by bending its head down and tucking its ears & trunk in. Once in that stance an elephant will charge forward in a straight line trampling anything in its way. It is usually young bulls that do this & the adults in the herd were all females. He said that if he would have seen any of the adult elephants getting ready to charge he would have driven off at full speed immediately.
A few of us needed a stiff drink after this escapade.
This is one of the elephants that mock-charged us – very scary! I have a video of the charge here. Note: at the end of this video when we were driving away, the reason I asked if the track bore right or left was because I could see that we couldn’t go straight ahead – so if it would have bent left, we would have collided with the angry elephants (& we might not have survived) – luckily it bent right & we drove out of their way.
We had a more tranquil encounter with a herd of elephants at dusk in Chobe.
I know that this is a silly photo, but it just shows our shadows from the setting sun
